By Ken Reed
The big fight approaches. “Bring it on!” yell sports fans. Pay-per-view execs clamor on and on about this “great event” and the record riches that the Floyd Mayweather – Manny Pacquiao fight will bring.
But nobody seems to want to address the fact that Mayweather is a serial abuser of women who doesn’t deserve our attention. This is a guy who should be in jail not on boxing’s biggest stage in a few days.
For all the people that make money off Mayweather, it’s business as usual, Profit-At-All-Costs (PAAC). For sports fans in general and boxing fans in particular, it’s Entertainment-At-All-Costs (EAAC).
Are we that hard up as a society for entertainment that we ignore what Mayweather the person does because Mayweather the boxer is so talented?
Five times juries have convicted Mayweather of some type of domestic violence. He’s been convicted of punching the mother of one of his children in the face with his fist, among a long list of ugly actions against women. Yet, there have been no sanctions from boxing’s governing bodies.
Ray Rice is a choir boy compared to this bum.
In a country in which sexual assault has reached epidemic proportions on our college campuses, millions of Americans will pay $98 and tune into Mayweather’s latest multi-million dollar fight.
Mayweather likely will be wearing his mouthguard made out of $100 bills in the ring. Clearly, bad decisions have no consequences for this bum.
The whole situation is a slap in the face to the thousands of hard-working people who are fighting the domestic abuse problem in this country.
Boxing has long been a sleazy, unethical sport. But placing a poor excuse of a man like Floyd Mayweather on a pedestal, as this fight does, is a low point in the fight game’s history.
It’s a frustrating situation, but at the very least we can boycott this fight, its promoters, and its advertisers. We can take a stand and not step into this slimy cesspool.
— Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director, League of Fans
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